Thursday, 8 April 2010

More Darwyn Cooke/Parker News...

Well now. Some more info about Darwyn Cooke's plans for adapting the Parker books into graphic novels has hit the interweb, following the release of his oversized comic book The Man with the Getaway Face at Wondercon in the US. You can reeeeaaad all abahdit here (along with some news about Cooke's version of The Hunter going onto the iPhone, if that sort of thing floats your boat), but essentially, Cooke had originally intended to adapt the first four Parker novels – The Hunter/Point Blank, The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit and The Mourner – in order. However he realised he really wanted to get to two of the later books: The Score and Slayground. So, as mentioned before, The Man with the Getaway Face has been folded into The Outfit, his next graphic novel, and he's skipping The Mourner altogether in favour of making The Score his third adaptation. And then he'll skip the eight books following The Score and adapt Slayground after that.

I've not finished The Score yet, but it is shaping up to be a killer read – the build-up to the heist is as fascinating as it was in The Man with the Getaway Face – and the heist itself, where Parker and co. take down an entire town, should be a blast. So I can see why he'd want to adapt that rather than the more low key The Man with the Getaway Face and The Mourner. And by all accounts Slayground, where Parker has to fight for his life in a fairground, is one of the best of the series. Cooke's a terrific cartoonist: whatever he wants to do next is fine by me. More power to his elbow.